Referred by a friend on Seesmic, the other day I tried out ooVoo (http://ooVoo.com) on my notebook. It’s an application similar to Skype, but features a lot more video functions. Besides one-on-one video chats and calls, you may also hold group video conversations with up to 6 ooVoo participants and 6 phone participants.
Have you ever been craving for a function on Skype to record phone calls? With ooVoo, not only can you do that, but also with the videos of both parties! It’s something like you see on a TV interview, with both the host and the distant party video windows showing up on the screen.
Another step forward beyond Skype is the ability to record video clips, which you can post to your blog, embed on your web site or send to your friends as an E-mail attachment. If you want something fancy, there are also hundreds of effects from Webcammax included to enhance your video. Use distorting mirror effects to surprise your friend, or put on a mask to fake Harry Potter.
ooVoo web site is currently partially localized into several languages, including Simplified Chinese. The client software is available in these languages too. I evaluated its Chinese translation in the software, while the general translation is good – much better than Skype’s, there’s still room to improve.
Of course, you can’t expect ooVoo beta to be perfect. For example, it lacks some useful features Skype has. The public chat function on Skype is something I can’t dispense with. In my daily job, localization team members use it to facilitate communication on issues during i18n. A temporary group chat is not as convenient when such work lasts for a long time or on a regular basis. ooVoo could also interfere with other video recording software. When it is running in the background, you could lose your voice in another video recording process.
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